Ivan Pili

About Ivan Pili

Ivan Pili, concert musician, composer and visual artist, born in Cagliari in 1976, graduated in civil engineering.
From an early age showed his artistic skills in design, distinguishing himself first in kindergarten and then in elementary school.
He discovered his innate propensity for music entirely by accident when playing the family of aerophones bellows and made his first concert debut at the age of twelve.
In the years 1991 to 1994 he devoted himself to the study of musical genres popular in
Europe and at the age of sixteen he begins to earn the title of International artist with his first concerts around Europe.
Particularly important for his artistic development was the meeting with the Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir and German Helmut Zacharias considered among the most virtuous violin teachers in decades.
In the years 1994 to 2000 joined several theatre groups and European musicians with whom he composed the music for Jose Alfonso’s “Era um Redondo vocabulo”, “Le voyageur sans bagages”by Francis Poulenc and “Lauda somnului” by Lucian Blaga In 1994 he won the diatonic accordion world title with the top score 100/100.
In the last deacde he took part in several performances as concert soloist in prestigious theatres such as Madrid Pradillo,the Museo Nacional de Dona Maria Lisbon, the Theatre du Balcon Avignon, the Amphitheatre in Arles, the Radio City Music Hall in New York and Cuvillies Theatre of Monaco of Bavaria.
Some of the awards he earned in his short carreer include Bester Musikier-Stuttgart Award, the Gold Award Helsingin Soittimien and Targu Secuiescmuzica premiu.
Author of the album “Novas Nodas” that is the traditional Sardinian music revisited in contemporary key (Egea Distribution). He’s also the creator and director of the International Music Project Keltaloth, with albums presented in 2015.

At the end of 2014 he resumed entirely by accident his artistic pictorial path interrupted with the advent of his musical carreer working during the construction of a wall painting in Germany, a fact derived ,in fact just from a concert.
From this moment he became known and received several official requests for the production of other murals.
The spread of images through social media brought the first requests for participation in collective exhibitions.
The first presentation of his art in a group exhibition was on February 6 th 2015.
The first period was characterized by supports of small-medium size and the use of acrylic colours but Ivan Pili stepped forward and after a few jobs he totally dedicated himself to the use of oil paints.
His first subjects referred to the figurative, evoking their life scenes and aiming to a “commom” public , just like on the occasion of his concerts.
Despite some attempts to paint landscape and still life, the true vocation of Ivan Pili will be the figurative.
Overwelmed by an emotional wake, although his works require long preparations typical of the Realism his production was already ready for his first solo exhibition at Saint Augustine Palace in Salerno.
From here on it is the beginning of a new experimental phase always growing, both in ability and in size of media refining in no time all techniques that will lead to the beginning of 2016 to perfect hyperrealism, “not photo”, but going beyond “the photograph”.
Those subjects still remain in the figurative are very different and the different light situations which Pili alters to his liking and with disarming ease with minimalist scenic essence and expressiveness.
The numerous requests for participation in events and the ever-growing works commissioned will lead Ivan Pili to reverse his artistic skills leaving the music to devote himself to full time painting.

Artist Statement

Following in the footsteps of the great masters of the past, the tradition of classical and romantic nineteenth-century painting that evolves into a figurative language relives in the beautiful works of art of master Ivan Pili, whilst the segno runs fast and decisive in the graphic ability from suffused values and chiaroscuro effects in an authentic interpretation of reality with an evocative descriptive realism.
Thus in his paintings there is a dive into the past, a taste of nostalgic painting in an antique coating in demonstration of the author's desire to overcome the constraints and fashions of modern times to relive the thrill of a glorious past, rich in nostalgia and steeped in both sacred and secular significance.
The essence of Caravaggio is manifested in the constant search for chiaroscuro effects that stand out in the encompassing and suffused light that shines in the intense portraits, where the romantic emphasis traces a bright coloring in its portraiture, between light coloristics and transparencies that render the painting exquisitely modern, of great lyrical intensity with an almost photographic cut, whilst undergoing a transition towards a dreamy dimension in which images give way to memory.
The illustrious influence of late neoclassical is evident in the painting style of Ivan Pili, recreating in the footsteps of the Venetian Francesco Hayez a stylistic mode of great realist suggestion and noble pathos in the bright coloring of Venetian descent, where high formal synthesis and construction based on chiaroscuro effects is highlighted, that particular soft light that modulates the forms in their entirety. Through his artistic sensibility, it is clear that Ivan Pili has mastered the executive ability to stop time in its history, evoking periods, moments that narrate historical subjects in diversified styles.
This important journey of art, without which today we could not comprehend his artistic creativity, inspires him to create paintings that recall the hyper-realistic vein, taking care of the graphic and coloristic minutiae to give images a visual impression of a descriptive and natural realism, while the author takes us into the evocative dimension for understanding the meaning of life.
So then, they appear in the enchantment of reality, visions of remembered characters in a silent dialogue with nature, with the animal world, portraits of tender faces in the innocence of children and the harmonious figure of a woman, between clear springs of water, arousing a sense of wonder, as if it were a mystery to be discovered in its intimacy.Everything blends into the light in the paintings of Ivan Pili to grasp with extreme caution and with the maximum sensitivity that certain point of light, that exact gradation of tone, that vibration in the atmosphere, whilst dragging ancient embroideries into the light of an open window.
That's why the images of Ivan Pili gradually evolve into visions of dreamlike beauty, towards an ideal logos of emotions, through the alchemy of earthy tones of green musk and soft blues, in the surrender to the forces of dream and the unconscious in spiritual escapism. In this way, the images open passages to the air, to the light, and together they make up forms and shapes that gradually express purity in brightness. And the light interprets not only the physical aspect, but translates lyrical feelings, where the same representation of the subject takes on an existential meaning, sensing what the senses cannot perceive.
Here lies the charm in the paintings of master Ivan Pili: the pictorial language captures the lyrical transfiguration of the real symbols and allusions of life, the invisible and the secret of anything, where nature enters the framework filtered, and therefore savored without constraint to sense the primary need for dialogue with nature, intended also and above all as an illusion, alienation, magic, in which pure poetry hovers.